NICOLE
The world was a blur of broken glass and screaming metal. Kento groaned, a trickle of blood snaking down his temple from a cut. His nice-guy act vanished. His eyes went wild, animal-like. He cursed, fumbling under his seat. His hand came back with a black gun.
He shoved his door open and stumbled out, raising the weapon. "Who do you think you're messing with?" he yelled into the night.
That's when I saw them. Two figures stood in the headlights of the car that hit us. They weren't men. They were boys, maybe a few years older than me, but they moved like something else entirely.
One had hair as black as the night and eyes like frozen ice. Blue. I'd never seen eyes that color. He stood perfectly still, watching Kento like a wolf watching a foolish dog. The other had warmer brown eyes and hair that fell across his forehead. He almost looked like he was about to smile, but his body was tense, ready to spring.
Kento fired the gun. The bang was so loud it hurt my ears.
But the boy with blue eyes just moved. It was so fast I barely saw it. He ducked to the side and in two steps he was on Kento. There was a flash of metal in his hand. He didn't yell or shout. He was silent and terrible.
He moved Kento's gun arm in a way that made it snap. I heard the bone break. Kento screamed, a high, shrill sound that was cut off suddenly. The blue-eyed boy's hand moved again, a quick, sharp motion. Kento dropped to the ground and didn't move.
From behind us, men poured out of the other cars in Kento's convoy. They shouted, raising their own guns.
The two boys didn't panic. They moved together like they'd done it a thousand times. The brown-eyed one moved like a ghost, slipping into the shadows. I heard a grunt, a thud, and one of Kento's men fell.
The blue-eyed boy walked straight toward the others, a knife now in his hand. He was so calm. He moved through the men like they were standing still. A slash, a duck, a hard kick. Men fell around him.
It was over in less than a minute. The street was quiet again, except for the hiss of a broken car engine. The two young men stood among the fallen bodies. The one with brown eyes wiped a spot of blood from his cheek with his thumb. The one with blue eyes looked straight at me through the broken car window.
His icy blue eyes held mine. He didn't smile. He didn't look away. He just looked, and I couldn't breathe.
The world had gone from a nightmare to a blur of violence, and now it was just… still. The two boys stood there, not even breathing hard.
It didn't feel like I was the reason any of this happened. It felt like I'd just gotten caught in the middle of their own twisted drama. A problem they hadn't planned for.
A miscalculation.
The one with the blue eyes—Kenji—looked at me. His look was cold and unfeeling, like he was deciding what to do with a piece of furniture he'd accidentally broken. He made a split-second decision.
He yanked open the car door. The metal groaned. Without a word, he leaned in, a sharp knife appearing in his hand. I flinched, but he just sliced through the seatbelt with a quick snick. The strap fell away. He didn't ask. He didn't explain. He just grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the wrecked car. My legs were shaky, and I stumbled on the pavement. Pieces of glass fell from my lap, tinkling like broken bells.
The other one, Tokito, sighed. "Kenji," he scolded, his voice lighter. "You could try being a little gentle. She's not a sack of rice."
Kenji just rolled his eyes, but his grip on my arm loosened just a little. I stood there, trembling, in a state of pure confusion. Who were they? Why were they here? Why was one so cold and the other acting… nice?
Tokito turned to me. He gave me a smile. It was different. It didn't have that stomach-turning hunger Kento's had. It looked… genuine. "Hey," he said, his voice softer. "That was a mess. Sorry about that. I'm Tokito. That grumpy one is Kenji." He waited, like he expected me to say something back.
I just stared. My mind felt slow, wrapped in cotton. I thought for a while, my dry throat working. Tokito shrugged, still friendly. "It's fine if you don't wanna talk. It's been a weird night."
Something in his ease made a single word push its way out. My voice was hollow and dry, like rust.
"Nicole," I whispered. It was just my name. Nothing else.
The word hung in the air between them. Nicole. It was the first word I'd said in over a year. It sounded foreign, strange, and raspy, even to my own ears. It didn't feel like mine anymore.
Kenji ignored it completely, already on his phone, speaking low, sharp Japanese into the device. His voice was all business, cold and efficient.
Tokito, however, was awfully cheerful. "Nicole. Nice to meet you," he said, like we'd been introduced at a party. He kept talking, his voice a steady, friendly stream, but I wasn't hearing the words.
My eyes were stuck on Kenji.
I stared at the hard line of his jaw, the ice in his blue eyes, like my stare could somehow unravel the puzzle of him. Who was he? Why was he here? The other boy was still talking, a comforting buzz I couldn't focus on.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, a black convoy of cars arrived silently. Men in dark clothes poured out. They didn't speak.
They just started working, clearing the bodies from the street, shoving them into heavy black sacks with a grim, practiced efficiency. I watched, numb, as Kento's smiling face was zipped away into darkness.
Kenji walked to the lead car. A man bowed deeply and handed him the keys before stepping aside without a word.
Tokito gently took my hand. His grip was surprisingly soft, leading me toward the same car. He opened the back door for me and was about to slide in beside me when he paused.
He looked at Kenji, who hadn't even glanced in our direction. He just stood by the driver's side door, his expression utterly unreadable.
Tokito observed him for a long second, then sighed dramatically. "Fine, fine," he said to the air. "I'll leave her alone." With a wink at me that did nothing to calm my racing heart, he shut my door and got into the passenger seat instead.
I was frozen in the back seat. Kenji hadn't said a single word. He hadn't made a gesture. How did Tokito just... know?
The driver's side door opened. Kenji slid in, the car dipping with his weight. The interior was instantly filled with his silent, powerful presence. He didn't look at me. He just started the engine, the purr of it sounding far too normal for what had just happened.
As the car pulled away from the nightmare, taking me toward another unknown, one terrifying thought echoed in my mind.
I just knew. This wasn't a rescue.
It was just the beginning of another living hell.